Main menu

Post navigation

New Business Owners: Writing for Your Customer

New business owners often struggle to understand who their customers are and what those customers want. As a result, the business owners tend to focus their marketing content on what they can do, rather than what customers need.

This “we can do it” approach relies on the customers to identify the solution to their problem and then locate a business that offers that solution. Unfortunately, most customers are not only in the dark about the solution they need, they are barely aware of the ramifications of the problem.

A customer decides, “I need someone to paint my house” and looks for a painter who is nearby and cheap. The customer doesn’t consider, “I need someone who understands that paint may be masking structural problems and that fixing those problems is a priority or the house will need repainting again in just a year or two.”

The difference in those two lines of thought equals a major difference in a business owner’s approach to marketing. Are you competing with the zillion other businesses who offer the same laundry list of services and who are nearby and cheap? Or are you different from those competitors, someone who understands the customer’s problem and looks out for the customer’s best interests? Are you someone who always reaches into the same grab-bag of solutions or do you tailor your approach based on your long-term concern for the customer?

Even online retail stores, with no brick-and-mortar customer contact, thrive best when their website narrows down a customer’s preferences and concerns. That ability to customize your offering to your customer–to create a relationship with the customer–is even more important when you do have customer contact. You never want to sacrifice that relationship because you have a limited understanding of who your customer is and what that customer needs.